Page 5. The Galle Print
Throughout this website we have shown the Galle print in reverse direction for easy comparison with the other versions. Here we show here the un-reversed print, with the inscription and with the spurious AD monogram.
Phillipe Galle published this print in 1587 in a collection titled "Imagines doctorum virorum". The AD monogram was added later. The original copper plate with the added monogram is in the possession of the owners of the Scots version. The print clearly shows the wart in the beard. The area is engraved with cross-hatching. In one direction the cross hatching not present over the wart, thus the wart has not been emphasised later.
It is a puzzle to understand how the portrait came to be mistakenly identified as Damaio by Galle. Galle was known to be meticulously accurate (15). The collection of prints would have been circulated amongst the other living subjects, many of whom would have met Damaio and who would have alerted Galle to the mis-identification. Could the sitter be the twenty year old Damaio? Not if we accept the Albertina drawing as the prime original, because that depicts a mature and clearly older man.
